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Roy
Williams left Chapel Hill from 1973-78 to be the head coach at Asheville's Owen
High School. We all need to take this moment to be extraordinarily grateful
that he chose to take that job, because otherwise there's a decent chance he
might not still be with us today.

It was
during that stretch, you see, that NC State reeled off nine wins in a row
against the Tar Heels, a figure that equals the sum total of Wolfpack victories
in the series since the day P.J. Hairston was born on Dec. 24, 1992 (yes, that's
true). The battle for the state wasn't fought with billboards or marketing
slogans in the mid-1970s. It didn't have to be, because State had David
Thompson and Tom Burleson and everyone knew who owned the series while they
were wearing red.

Thankfully,
Williams did not have to sit on the sideline for those games, because he might
not have survived it. Have you watched him, really watched him, coach a game
against the Wolfpack? Midway through the second half, he clapped his hands
together so forcefully while expressing amazement at Lorenzo Brown drawing a
charge while turning his back to James Michael McAdoo that he clapped his watch
straight off his wrist.

No problem. He grabbed the watch in
one hand, deposited it in his left pants pocket, readjusted his championship
ring--those darn things are bulky and tend to get in the way, you know--and kept
on pleading/cajoling/coaching his team.

"Come on!"
he shouted on almost every defensive possession, and you just know players of
this era will hear this in their sleep long after they hang up their argyle.
"Come ooooooon!"

It was that
kind of afternoon at the Smith Center. It felt like an old-time ACC game--4 p.m.
on a Saturday, sellout crowd, conference positioning at stake. All we needed
was Dinah Shore to hand out the Holly Farms Player of the Game award afterwards
(kids, ask your parents).

If she'd
been there, she would've been hard-pressed to give the honor to anyone but
Marcus Paige. Williams has now called Paige "a tough little nut" three times in
the past two days. That's high praise from the head coach, who has previously
reserved that exact phrase for players like Raymond Felton and Ty Lawson (who
was the rare player who could also occasionally earn a "wacko tough little nut"
description).

In the minutes before Saturday's game,
Paige--who received a thorough education from State's Lorenzo Brown in the
first meeting--told P.J. Hairston, "This is going to be a different game."

But saying that is not what makes
him a tough little nut.

This is what makes him a tough
little nut: saying that, and then backing it up with 14 points, eight assists
and zero turnovers. Included among those 14 points was an enormous
three-pointer in front of the Tar Heel bench, when Paige had time to eye the
rim, gaze around at his teammates, look at the rim again, consider exactly
whose state this actually was, look at the rim for a third time, and fire it
through to turn a two-point UNC deficit into a one-point lead. Gio Bernard ran
back the punt for a touchdown in less time than Paige had to eyeball that shot.

"I honestly thought someone was
going to come cover the ball and I'd make one more pass to a shooter," Paige
said. "When that happens, you have to step up and take the shot."

Carolina played with that type of
edge all afternoon. In Raleigh, they looked a little overwhelmed. Saturday,
they looked like they belonged.

"We've been doing this for a long
time," said Leslie McDonald, who played two big second-half defensive
possessions on Scott Wood. "And we're not backing down. We're not ready to let
go of our state."

Certainly
not as long as Roy Williams occupies the biggest office in the Smith Center.
The head coach's intensity has a way of spreading. No player who has ever played for him at Carolina has failed to understand exactly how Williams feels about the Wolfpack. Almost ten years ago, Ohio native Jawad Williams stood in the UNC locker room after a win in Raleigh and said, "When I got here, I didn't know anything about State-Carolina. But Coach Williams makes it very clear."

Look back at the photo
on the front page of this site. Hairston looks pretty excited, right? But look
behind him--there's Williams, who looks like he just converted a three-point
play himself. And there's assistant coach Steve Robinson in full fist-pump
mode, like Tiger Woods on the 18th green.

Late in the game--the outcome was
already decided--Hubert Davis thought some Tar Heels were celebrating too early.
He ripped his glasses off his face because, well, his glasses were the only
thing nearby that wasn't bolted down. He flung off the glasses, scowled at the
court, clinched his fists, and then realized there wasn't much left to do
except slam his glasses back over his ears.

Davis, you see, was 3-5 in his
playing career against the Wolfpack, including three losses by a top-10
Carolina team to an unranked State squad.

A hallway
that leads to the Tar Heel locker room runs behind the media room. Usually,
it's fairly quiet as the assembled media waits for Williams to appear for his
postgame press conference. Some journalists are writing their game stories,
some are tweeting (OK, they're all tweeting) and others are perusing the stats.

Through
that quiet came a celebratory yell. "Wooooooo!" shouted someone who was clearly
running towards the locker room, giving off a perfect Doppler effect as the
owner of the shout raced down the hallway.

A bystander
poked his head out to find out the identity of the shouter.

"It's
Hubert," he reported back.

Oh, well,
that makes sense for a player like Desmond Hubert to be fired up after a big
ACC win. Good for Desmond that he was showing such emotion...

"Hubert Davis," came the clarification.

That led to
Paige's only turnover of the day. Asked about the scene in the Tar Heel locker
room, the freshman replied, "It was pretty businesslike."

Sure, if your business is being Ric Flair. Let's give Paige a break. He's a freshman and he's not sure exactly how much he can reveal
just yet. So, let's turn the microphone back over to McDonald and let him tell
us the truth about what happened.

"In the
locker room both before the game and after the game, Coach Williams was so
fired up," McDonald said. "There was no doubt we were ready before the game. As
a matter of fact, we were ready after the game. Coach Williams came into the
locker room after the game so pumped up and fired up that I think we could've
gone out and played them again."

Roy
Williams is now a combined 42-9 against NC State when sitting on the Carolina
bench as either an assistant coach or head coach. And he's coached every single
one of them like it's the middle of the 1970s.